2011 Inaugural Arthur Teters Memorial

22 players entered the event, an excellent turnout for this new, prestigious tournament. Top seed was Vineetha Wijesuriya, with Club champion Rob Loveband seeded 2nd and Patrick Cook 3rd.
Round 1 went as expected, with rating favourites winning all games; so it wasn’t until round 2 that the interesting pairings produced interesting results. Feisty Jamie Brotheridge held Vineetha Wijesuriya to a draw, while Rob Loveband beat Kevin Perrin. There were no surprises on the other boards.
Round 3 saw the top six seeds play each other. Patrick Cook produced a rare win against Joel Beggs, Rob Loveband downed Vineetha Wijesuriya, while Kevin Perrin beat Jamie Brotheridge, leaving Patrick and Rob on 3/3, to face each other in the next round.
In round 4, Rob Loveband held Patrick Cook to a draw in a lengthy game after the latter belied his peaceful reputation by trying to win! But the sensation was lowly rated Tom Oppenheim’s surprise win over Vineetha Wijesuriya, while Chris Segrave held Kevin Perrin to a draw.
Round 5, and the Joel Beggs versus Rob Loveband showdown was a draw, while Patrick Cook grabbed the outright lead by defeating Thumula Gamage. Vineetha Wijesuriya recovered from her round 4 shock by overcoming Kevin Perrin.
Round 6 saw Vineetha Wijesuriya face Patrick Cook and demonstrate high class technique in scoring a memorable win over the 7-time Club champion, while Rob Loveband found himself in the lead by beating Jamie Brotheridge.
In the last round, Rob Loveband held on to the lead by beating the ambitious young James Watson, while Joel Beggs defeated Tom Oppenheim and Jamie Brotheridge could only draw against his eternal rival Patrick Cook.
This left our 2011 champion, Rob Loveband, as the outright winner of the inaugural Arthur Teters Memorial.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Enter your games at Chessmicrobase

For the past decade or so, the period between the annual Club Championships, for the Andy Miitel shield and John Baynham shield, has been filled with non-descript rapid play tournaments. At the suggestion of some club members, a new annual 7 round Swiss, games to be rated, was devised. All that remained was to give it a name. After a great deal of discussion, it was finally agreed to honour a past Ballarat player who has faded, almost to obscurity, in our collective memories.
Arthur Teters was part of the great wave of post-war immigration to Australia of Baltic chess players. He arrived in Australia in 1950 and won the Australian Open in Melbourne in 1953, before settling in Ballarat in 1954.
It can be established that he won the Ballarat Club championship in 1954 and 1957, and possibly several other years as well. He was elected President of the Club shortly after arriving here and played successfully for the Club in numerous inter-city matches. His other OTB achievements included winning the Country Victorian championship in the 1950’s, and then the Victorian State championship in 1965, no doubt after he had returned to live in Melbourne.
Upon his arrival in Ballarat, he had told the “Courier” that a highlight of his youth was holding the World Champion to a draw in a simultaneous exhibition in Riga. The Champion could only have been Mikhail Botvinnik, a notable achievement indeed.
He was also a strong and active CC player, winning the Victorian Correspondence Chess championship in the 1950’s and representing Australia in a CC Olympiad.
By a curious coincidence, the current President of the Club, Patrick Cook, played against Mr. Teters a number of times in the 1970’s and ‘80’s, without ever knowing of his connection to Ballarat chess. So, it is important that he not be forgotten and this new tournament is an appropriate salute to a past Ballarat champion.